Multidrug refractory aggressive metastatic TFE3 (+) renal cell carcinoma: A case report

Avelumab plus axitinib for translocation renal cell carcinoma: A case series and literature review

Introduction

Patients with translocation renal cell carcinoma (tRCC) have a poor prognosis without standardized treatment.

Case presentation

The first case was of a 72-year-old woman who underwent robot-assisted partial nephrectomy for a left renal tumor and was pathologically diagnosed with tRCC. Recurrence was observed in the left retroperitoneal soft tissue. After treatment with avelumab-axitinib, continued progression-free survival was confirmed at the 90-week follow-up. The second case was of a 41-year-old woman referred to our hospital and presented with translocation renal cell carcinoma metastasis to a para-aortic lymph node. After treatment with avelumab-axitinib, continued progression-free survival was confirmed at the 43-week follow-up.

Conclusion

The outcomes of these cases indicate that avelumab-axitinib therapy has a long-term antitumor effect in some patients with tRCC.

Therapeutic strategies and predictive models for Xp11.2 translocation/TFE3 gene fusion renal cell carcinoma in adults based on data of two Chinese medical centers

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to establish an effective predictive model for predicting Xp11.2 translocation/TFE3 gene fusion renal cell carcinoma (TFE3-RCC) and develop optimal therapeutic strategies.

METHODS

Data from 4961 patients diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma at two medical centers in China were retrospectively analyzed. A cohort of 1571 patients from Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital (Ra cohort) was selected to construct the model. Another cohort of 1124 patients from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University was used for external validation (the Ha cohort). All patients with TFE3-RCC in both cohorts were included in the Ta cohort for the prognostic analysis. Univariate and multivariate binary logistic regression analyses were performed to identify independent predictors of the predictive nomogram. The apparent performance of the model was validated. Decision curve analysis was also performed to assess the clinical utility of the developed model. Factors associated with progression and prognosis in the Ta cohort were analyzed using the log-rank method, and Cox regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to describe the effects of factors on prognosis and progression.

RESULTS

Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses demonstrated that age, sex, BMI, smoking, eosinophils, and LDL were independent predictors of TFE3-RCC. Therefore, a predictive nomogram for TFE3-RCC, which had good discriminatory power (AUC = 0.796), was constructed. External validation (AUC = 0.806) also revealed good predictive ability. The calibration curves displayed good consistency between the predicted and observed incidences of TFE3-RCC. Invasion of regional lymph nodes, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and surgical methods were independent factors associated with progression. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors are independent prognostic factors.

CONCLUSION

This study not only proposed a high-precision clinical prediction model composed of various variables for the early diagnosis of Xp11.2 translocation/TFE3 gene fusion renal cell carcinoma but also optimized therapeutic strategies through prognostic analysis.

Clinicopathological features and prognosis of TFE3-positive renal cell carcinoma

Background

This study aimed to investigate the expression profile of TFE3 in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and the clinicopathological features as well as prognosis of TFE3-positive RCC.

Methods

Tissue sections from 796 patients with RCC were collected for immunohistochemical staining of TFE3. Molecular TFE3 rearrangement tests were also carried out on the TFE3-positive RCCs using fluorescence in situ hybridization and RNA-sequencing assays. Both clinicopathological features and follow-up information were collected for further analysis.

Results

The present study showed that 91 patients with RCC (91/796, 11.4%) were TFE3 positive expression but only 31 (31/91, 34.1%) of the patients were diagnosed with Xp11.2 translocation RCC. Further, it was found that the patients with TFE3-positive RCCs were more likely to develop lymph node and distant metastasis at diagnosis as well as presented a significantly higher WHO/ISUP nuclear grade and AJCC stage as compared with patients with TFE3-negative RCCs (p<0.01). Results of univariate and multivariate analyses showed that TFE3 positive expression was an independent prognostic factor associated with poor progression-free survival. Further, the findings of survival analysis showed that patients with positive TFE3 expression showed a shorter progression-free survival as compared with the patients with negative expression of TFE3 (p<0.001). In addition, results of the survival analysis found that there was no significant difference in progression-free survival between the Xp11.2 translocation RCC and TFE3-positive non-Xp11.2 translocation RCC groups (p=0.9607).

Conclusion

This study found that nuclear TFE3 expression is not specific to the Xp11.2 translocation RCC. Moreover, the positive TFE3 expression is associated with tumor progression and poor prognosis in patients with RCC irrespective of the presence of TFE3 translocation.